Deborah
by deborahelizabeth
Summary: New character built into the story after the fall of the prison.
1. Chapter 1

Deb could hear them up ahead, the fuckers must have encountered another group of people on the road. For a moment she hesitated, it might be a bit messy to engage them while they were already handling something else. She moved into the ditch and down the road a ways trying to get a better view of what was going on. Her heart was racing at the possibility of this being over, both excited and terrified. She got a good view. The biggest man was holding down a woman with a gun to her head, the leader was grappling with a bearded stranger, her gut twisted at the sight of one of them standing over a young boy while unbuckling his belt. She was done with hesitation, she stood up on the bank with arrow at the ready and released, the rapist fell backwards with an arrow lodged in his brain.

For a moment the fighting strangers stood still for a moment looking into the darkness but it stopped. The boy screamed out, "Help us!". Ever weary she stood firm but he screamed again with tears in his throat and she couldn't help it she knocked another. The man holding the woman turned to where her arrow had come from using the woman as a shield. It was a difficult shot but she was confident, more confident than she had ever been before, she loosed. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

The woman leapt up and went to help the other man, Deb moved forward into the moonlight and saw that the others from the group were beating on the man with the crossbow. It didn't matter, her revenge was at hand. The leader had the bearded man in his hands backed up against a tree, Deb knocked her arrow ready to release but before she could the bearded man did the unthinkable. He bit into the leaders neck and ripped out the artery in the man's neck, he bled out in seconds and her revenge disappeared from reach. She was angry and she turned on the last of the people from the group and put an arrow in each of their backs.

The other two saw that they had lost turned to run, calmly she stepped over the unconscious body of the beaten man and put an arrow in each of their retreating backs. She saw them go down and turned, slinging her bow over her shoulder and pulling her knife from its sheath. She went to drive her knife into the temple of the unconscious man but a tidal impact of force slammed into her and her vision blacked out for a second when her head hit the ground. Opening her eyes she saw the bearded mans face above her own and felt his hand holding down her wrists.

"He's one of them!" she yelled in his face.

Impressively calmly for a man with blood dripping from his mouth he answered her. "He's one of us. Who are you?"

A gravelly voice answered for me. "She's been following that group since I joined 'em."

Her pride winced knowing that he knew that she had been tracking them but she let it go looking at the man she asked. "If you knew why didn't you tell the rest of them?"

"Rick, get up." he said before answering me. The man called Rick released her and she sat up rubbing her wrists from the pressure. She was greeted by looking at the barrel of a gun pointed straight at her face. "You seemed harmless enough. Glad I didn't now. Ask her the question."

Rick kept the gun trained straight between her eyes. "How many walkers have you killed?"

"Do you keep count?" she responded rudely.

He nodded and went on. "How many people have you killed?"

She stopped for a moment but answered him nonetheless. "Including those four. Five."

"Why?" He asked again.

"They were trying to kill you, is that not enough?" she demanded.

"No," he told her simply.

"You were following them." the woman added.

"They took turns holding me down and raping me." she answered again. The man's face twitched but he did not break his eye contact. "Then they beat me unconscious and left me to die but not before the leader picked up my baby and took a knife to his throat."

He fought to keep his face impassive and asked again. "You said five."

Tears were making there way out of her eyes but her voice was steady. "My sister was bit. I put her down."

There was a moment, just a moment of silence before Rick lowered his gun and stood offering the newcomer his hand. She took it and stood up. He nodded to her and took his son by the arm and went into the burnt out truck without a word.

She looked at the others. "My name is Deborah, normally just Deb."

The crossbowman looked unsteady on his feet with blood pouring from his nose but he nodded to her. "Daryl."

"Michonne." Said the black woman with the katana.

Daryl went to tend to his wounds by the trunk and Deb turned pulling her knife back out for use driving it into the skull of the leader and dragging his body over into the ditch. Michonne went to help her with the others but she shook her head. "Let me. Please."

The imposing woman seemed to understand because she nodded and didn't make another move towards the rest of the bodies. It was therapeutic. Driving her knife into the skulls of the men who assaulted her, greeting the flashbacks with open arms her face was soaked with tears when she was done and she let them fall. As she collected her arrows, she was upset to see that two of them had met spine and rib and shattered from the impact.

When her grisly work was finished she went over, Michonne had a small campfire going roasting a squirrel on a handmade spit. Daryl was wincing as he tried to make his way down to lay back.

"Take off your shirt." Deb ordered him.

"What?" he asked looking up at her.

"I was trained as a nurse." she answered. "You could have broken ribs, fractures or internal bleeding. Let me take a look. Take off your shirt."

He glared up at her but removed his vest and his shirt and permitted her to poke and prod as she needed to. One of his lower ribs was flexible to the touch, she bound his torso up tight as best she could and ordered his to keep it as still as possible knowing that he wouldn't.

"You could puncture your lung and there won't be shit I can do for it." she explained continuing her exam.

"Ow!" he bellowed grabbing her wrist drawing blood with his nails.

"Let go." she told him and he did. "You're spleen is bleeding. You're belly isn't distended so it's not too bad, more than likely it'll clear up on its own but keep a sharp eye on it and tell me if it hurts without touching it or you stomach looks like it sticking out more than normal."

He grunted at her before lying back which she took as a thank you. "The bruised and the scraps you'll just have to deal with." He made another noise but otherwise did not respond.

She sat back on her haunches and looked at Michonne, "You're heading to Terminus right?"

"Yes." Michonne said. "Rick's opted to trust you so I'd imagine you could come with us if you want. More people who can shoot and live out here are an asset to us."

"Not to be rude." Deb asked. "But you people are looking pretty steady on your feet. The few people I've seen have been a hell of a lot worse off than you folks. Skinnier, hungrier, most desperate. Do you have a safe place?"

"We did." She told her. "We were holed up in a prison. Had most of it in use.. Had to clear walkers off the fences every day but we had food growing and were raising pigs. We were gathering new people to, finding them, bringing them in."

"What happened?" Deb asked her.

Michonne's face darkened but she told her. "A man. Called himself the Governor showed up on our gates and blasted it all to hell. Told the people he was with that it was to take it from us but he was there to destroy us. We lost a lot of people that day. We hope that if anyone lived they saw the signs and we'll see them when we get there."

"I'm sorry." Deb told her.

"Can't say any of it was any worse than what you went through, or what anyone else went through that's still living." Michonne said, no longer looking her in the face.

"The shit that happened to you is always the most painful." Deb told her. "Humans are capable of empathy. At least they used to be. But I daresay we can only truly feel the pain that we are in."

Michonne nodded at her. Daryl spoke from his place on the ground "That's some higher level shit. You educated?"

"I have a lot of fancy pieces of paper at home, yeah." she answered him with the ghost of a smile. "But since the world ended the only education I've been able to use is from the summer I spent at a girl guide camp and the archery lessons that I quit after two months."

Michonne returned my small grin before pulling herself up and getting onto the roof of the truck that her friends were sleeping in. "Fair to assume you won't be trusting me to keep watch quite yet?"

"You're a smart girl." Michonne said looking down at the newcomer.

Deb took that as a yes, put her pack on the ground and sat to rest. Purple bruises were blossoming on her wrists and she could feel welts on her back starting to appear. The back of her head had been bleeding from the fall but it had stopped leaving the blood to dry in her hair. She pulled the worst of it off of the strands on her long blond hair before pulling it back into her customary braid down her back.

Deb instincts told her to trust these people but she wasn't stupid, she tucked all her things beneath her head and kept her pistol loaded and in hand as she lay back to fall asleep. She woke up when Michonne changed watches with Daryl and again when he switched with Rick but other than that she slept through the night waking in the morning with dew on her face before the others.


	2. Chapter 2

She stood and did her business in the woods, everyone else was up when she returned to them. They looked at her as she came back. "Thought you might have decided to leave us." Rick said to her.

"Nah. I just slept through the night for the first time since this started. I figure I might get a few more of those if I stick with you people." she said shrugging.

Rick nodded to her, a few minutes later everyone had their things ready and the five of them set off into the woods towards the railroad tracks. She brought up the rear, keeping her bow strung and every muscle ready to fight when the time came. She relaxed a bit when they reached the tracks, she was saw the brilliance of using them. Clear visibility to the tree line, all heading straight to the same place, only going through towns every so often.

The boy intrigued her, he couldn't have been more than twelve but he walked with confidence with a gun on his hip and a stone face. She spoke to him. "I'm Deb. What is your name?"

"Carl." he said stiffly but he looked back at her. "Thank you for killing that man."

She nodded to him and smiling gently. "Who were you?" he asked of her.

She blinked, she didn't think about before much. "Care to guess?" she said teasingly.

His eye lit up and for the rest of the day the went back and forth as he guessed over and over again never coming close. They were getting off the tracks to find a place to camp when Carl guessed, "Were you a doctor? Or a nurse?"

Deb smiled. "No."

"Hey!" Daryl protested. "I thought you said you were!"

She explained herself. "I took a six month course on assisting doctors for my job. That is your hint." She said addressing Carl.

"That is a terrible hint!" he protested but she just smiled and told him nothing else.

They found an inlet of trees and set up camp, she pulled the gloves out of her pack as took her barbed wire and wrapped it around the perimeter once at knee and one at chest level. "Smart." Rick told her.

"Keeps them back. Hopefully keeps us alive." she told him.

"You're on third watch." he said before handing her a can of ravioli.

She smiled at his trust but gave the can back, "You seem to be a man of honour Rick. Promise not to kill me."

He looked at her with a furrowed brow but promised all the same, she pulled her bag close and opened it for him to see the contents. He literally gasped. She had more than half her bag full of canned goods, the other half filled with water bottles. "I've done alright." she said sheepishly.

"This is worth more than gold now." Rick said.

"It's also heavier than gold." she laughed at her but didn't catch her meaning. "Let's spread the love around. Divide it by five. everybody carry their share. If we get split up we'll have supplies to last us."

"Are you serious?" Carl said coming up behind his dad.

"I am." she told him.

From that moment forward they treated her like one of their own, all except for Daryl who didn't seem to trust her but she accepted that as it was even when she saw his eyes glistening in the firelight every night for the whole time she was on watch. His rib seemed to heal well enough and the bleeding resolved itself quickly enough.

They were getting close, they figured that they would get there before dark the next day as they set up camp once again. Rick sat at the campfire and addressed them all. "We have to go there, we have to but we aren't walking up like cows to the slaughter." he said. "From what the maps look like it has a main gate and it's encircled by walls, we'll watch for a while before finding a place to jump the wall and find out if someone is there."

"I'll stay outside. Keep an eye on everything, that way if things go south there is someone on the outside to help." Deb suggested.

"Nah." Daryl said.

"It's a good plan." Michonne told him.

"Didn't say it wasn't." Daryl responded. "I'll be the one on the outside, no guarantees this broad won't just pack up and leave if things go wrong in there."

"That may be true but I don't wanna walk in there without you watching our backs." Rick told him. That seemed to settle the matter.

"You got to tell me." Carl said as he lay down.

"What's that?" Deb asked.

"What you did, before all this." Carl said. "I'm never going to guess."

"Fine." Deb told him. "I lived in Nairobi, Kenya. During the day I worked on the ground in a hospital taking care of people with wounds, mothers who needed pre and post natal care, anyone who needed it. My evenings were spent in the government offices trying to establish some sort stability in the country."

"How did you end up in the states when all this went down?" Rick asked.

"I was in Atlanta for a conference, talking about my work. My sister had never been out of Canada so she figured while I was a bit closer she would visit." She told him.

"What about your husband?" Rick asked again. "Sorry, but I saw your wedding band."

Her throat went tight but she told him, "He's up north, he was in Toronto for a different conference." she smiled wistfully. "I like to think he made it. Living up there."

"That's a hell of a hope. And a hell of a distance to find out." Daryl chimed in.

"I'm of the same mind. Krista. My sister. She was adamant about trying to get home, she seemed to think that this thing was unique to the US but I told her that contagions tend to ignore international borders." Deb said. "and that I like to this he's alive but I also like to think he's given up on me, maybe moved on with another woman. Happy. Safe."

Both Daryl and Michonne stared at her. Remembering her sister hurt but her optimism was comforting.

Carl was grimacing at her. "What?" she asked him.

"I wish I had that." She did not push him but he went on. "I saw my mother die. My baby sister was eaten as we left the prison. There is no making up stories for them."

She was shocked but couldn't leave him with those dark thoughts. "Maybe your little sister met my little boy after they died."

"There is no heaven!" He said standing up to glare at her.

"Probably not." she said holding his gaze and raising my voice. "My husband is probably dead. But we are alive and we need to make it through this day and the next so I suggest you try not to think that way."

He stood defiant to her with his jaw set but after a moment he relented and laid back down in silence, a few moments later she heard his stifled crying. Maybe it was the boy she lost but the sound of his ragged breathing crushed her, she pulled her things over next to his head leaning back on the tree. Gently she stroked his long chestnut hair, he flinched away at first but slowly relaxed back then seemingly without thinking the hard man he was trying to be melted away and lifted his head and put it in her lap. He fell into a deep sleep after a while and only then did she pull away to lay down herself.

She saw Rick watching her with a strange look on his face, for a second she thought he was going to say something but instead he rolled over and stayed that way. Night fell in truth not long afterwards but sleep didn't come to her, she gave up shortly after she saw the moon break the treeline and joined Daryl in his place on the edge of the camp.

"That boy," he said. "I ain't seen him look like a kid since his mom died."

She nodded to him and he went on. "Her name was Lori, I never liked her much but she took mothering seriously, she got pregnant, not long after this all started. Got lost inside the prison with Maggie, one of our own and Carl before we cleared it, went into labour. Maggie had to perform a c section in a stall. She was bleeding out and they had to go with the baby. Carl, he shot her so she wouldn't come back."

She looked out into the darkness thinking on what he just said, cursing the world for coming to be the place where sons have to mercy kill their own mothers.


End file.
